ENOUGH LEADERSHIP? WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

 

 

Talk to any reliable construction contractor about when enough is enough and they say two things:

It’s enough when you run out of money to do more.

And it’s enough when you run out of time and need to wrap things up.

Ask any self respecting parent how they decide when enough is enough:

When kid behavior looks like it might harm them; when the same behavior may harm others, including ma and pa.

In terms of leadership, when is enough enough? I use my experience as a team leader at work, my sports coaching, and my husband/father role.

Most of all I use the lessons taught when I attended Army Leadership School in boot camp. All platoon guides got the training and I was the one selected to stand in front of my guys and parrot what the Drill said.

At the time I was a nineteen year old E2 and ready for the work. I’d done some living in nineteen years, or at least the last four, that prepped me for the job.

Don’t all nineteen year olds feel the same? Smart and capable and up to every leadership challenge.

After I got my assignment the rest of the guys saw me differently. If they needed advice, I was the guy. They needed someone to listen, I was the guy. The job wasn’t baby sitting, but it had a certain feel.

A married trainee came too ask what would happen if he deserted the base to be with his wife when she gave birth.

Again, I was nineteen and the guy was about thirty. What was I supposed to roll out for him? This is what I said:

“If you bail on us you probably won’t get sent back. You’ll get recycled to another training company in the same week as the week you deserted. And the Drills will punish all of us because of you. Should you go? Probably. But if you come back to this platoon after we get the shit for you leaving, I think they’ll take it out on you. We’ve some mean fuckers in here who like nothing better than kicking ass. You know who they are. They’ll kick your ass.”

“Will you be one of them?” he asked.

“Yes, but let’s make a deal. If you beat me arm wrestling I’ll help you out. If I win, you stand down. Fair enough?”

“I’ve seen you beat everyone in the platoon. I won’t stand a chance,” he said.

“Do you think I should let you win?”

“No, but I don’t stand a chance.”

“Then let’s do this: Tomorrow I’ll ask the First Sneaker about emergency leave. Then I’ll ask the Captain what the process is. With those two on our side you’ll have a better chance.”

“But they’ll know I might run.”

“I think they already know who the runners will be. We aren’t the first guys they’ve ever seen.”

“I’ll be on a watch list.”

“Yeah, and you won’t get to go out on our first leave when it comes up.”

“Why did I even join the Army?” he said.

“I wondered the same thing and called my dad. I told him this Army thing was a bad idea and they’ll let us out if we complain enough.”

“They will?”

“What I’ve heard is yes. But my dad asked if I ever wanted to come home again. I said yes, and he said do the time I volunteered for.”

“Was he Army or something?”

“Marine. In Korea. Purple Heart and Silver Star.”

“Had he always been a hard ass?”

“When he needed to be hard assed, he can bring it with the best of them. I got picked up by police at a football game. The cop was walking me out of the stadium when the old man cut him off and told him he’d bring me down, that he didn’t want to see his kid taken off the campus in a police car.”

“What did you do?”

“Went with my dad.”

“Why did the police want you?”

“I’d been in a car after football practice when older guys said there was free soda for the taking behind the the Payless Store in Pony Village. Before getting dropped off the driver stopped and picked up a case of pop. Turns out it wasn’t free after all.”

“So you robbed a store?”

“That’s what it looks like, or a passenger in the wrong car at the wrong time, which is how my dad saw it.”

“What should I do?”

“Well, we signed up, right? We’re men doing man stuff here. Being a dad is most manly of all if you do it right. Stay here and your kid will hear you tell the story one day, the story of you living up to your commitment to your pals, to the Army, and the United States of this America. And how you didn’t get blanket partied on for going over the hill.”

“I’d get a blanket party?”

“Most likely.”

The good trainee made his arrangements and his kid was born without him. The guys all pulled together. They asked if he was naming the kid Jody.

A big part of good leadership is peer pressure. Leadership isn’t about taking things away, it’s adding things. Incentives. Good leadership rewards good behavior. Bad leadership is a problem for everyone.

Have you had any run ins with bad leadership lately?